In this course, you’ll practice the sounds of American English that might sometimes be confusing. You'll practice both consonant and vowel sounds. You’ll also learn about the things that give English its special “music,” such as how to stress the right syllable in a word, how to make your voice go up and down in a natural-sounding melody, and how to naturally connect sounds and words. Learning these things will help you speak more clearly and make sure that others can understand what you're saying.
This course is useful for English language learners who want to improve pronunciation of American English for better communication.
Note that access to all of the lectures and handouts are free to anyone, but the graded assignments and quizzes are only available in the paid version of the course. You will need to submit recordings of your own pronunciation for graded assignments.

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Just finished the free mode course. This course is really great. I was expecting a lot from it, and I am very surprised it exceeded my expectations.

CD

Nov 05, 2017

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If English is not you native language, you can benefit enormously from this course, specially if you have been speaking English for a long time.

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Tricky Consonant Sounds

In this first week, you will practice the consonant sounds of American English. Consonants are the sounds where the air coming up from your lungs meets some obstacles on the way. The first sounds in the words time, sand, and moon are consonants. After a quick quiz to find out which consonant sounds are the most difficult for you, you’ll practice some pairs of sounds that might be confusing and learn some tricks for telling them apart, and you’ll start to understand how your mouth moves when you say these sounds.

講師

Tamy Chapman

Instructor, International Programs

Marla Yoshida

Academic Coordinator

Brad Gilpin

字幕

Final Consonants and Consonant Clusters. Sometimes a sound that's easy to pronounce when it comes at the beginning of a word might be harder to say at the end of a word. Why is this? For some speakers it's because their first language never has consonants at the ends of words. Or maybe only certain consonants. Or it may be because we pay more attention to sounds at the beginning of words. We get ready for them and can say them clearly but by the end of the word we're not quite so careful. Final consonants are tricky. When speakers have trouble with unfamiliar final consonants sometimes they omit the last sound. This makes it hard for listeners to understand what word they're saying. If someone tries to say word. Listeners might hear, were. Or if someone tries to say teach, listeners might hear, tea. Let's practice with these words that end in consonant sounds. Be careful to pronounce the final consonants. Hot. Book. Attend. Market. Academic. Other speakers might make final consonants easier by adding a vowel sound after the last consonant. But unfortunately, adding extra vowels will make it hard for listeners to understand the words you say. Be careful not to add an extra vowel sound at the end of these words. For example the word eat should not sound like eate or eato or eatu. Just eat. Let's practice some more words that end in consonant sounds. Be careful to pronounce the final consonants and don't add extra vowel sounds. Need. Dress. Reach. Develop. Realistic. If it's hard to pronounce final consonants, sometimes you can link the last sound in one word, to the first sound in the next word, especially if that word starts with a vowel. Now try the same words in sentences. Link the final consonants to the next word. We need a new book. I bought a dress and a blouse. Did they reach a conclusion? We'll develop a plan. That's not a realistic idea. Consonant clusters are another consonant challenge. These are groups of two or more consonant sounds together like the first three sounds in string or the last two sounds in best. Notice that sometimes two consonant letters do not really represent a consonant cluster. The two letter combinations in she, the, phone, pack, and sing are not consonant clusters. They each spell just one consonant sound. Consonant clusters have two or more sounds. Consonant clusters like str are often more difficult to pronounce than each sound separately. When speakers have trouble with consonant clusters, sometimes they omit one of the necessary sounds. This makes it hard for listeners to understand what they're saying. For example, if someone wants to say string, but leaves out the r sound, listeners might hear sting. Or they say best, but leave out the s sound, listeners might hear bet. Let's practice with some more words with consonant clusters. Be careful not to omit sounds. Stop. Brown. Drawing. Splash. Stops, attempts, cluster, treats, strengths, transcripts. Sometimes speakers add extra vowel sounds to make consonant clusters easier to say. For example, when someone says stone it might sound like estone or sutone. Either of these could be hard for listeners to understand. Let's practice with these words with consonant clusters. Be careful not to omit sounds or add extra vowels. Play. Brown. Spend. Strong. Splash. Task. Count. Milk. Parents. Jumped. Now try these sentences. Counting the tickets is an important task. Some frogs jumped into the pond with a splash. Most parents want their children to drink milk. There were storms with strong winds last spring. In this lesson, we've practiced consonant sounds at the ends of words like the last sounds in cat, lock and miss. We've also practiced consonant clusters, groups of two or more consonant sounds like the ones in star, blue, and spring. Keep practising so that these sounds will feel more natural and easier to pronounce.